


Cold Fusion

by NeatenedIgnoramus



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A Bit of Fluff, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, M/M, On purposely vague, Stucky - Freeform, Who's Bucky?, brainwashed!bucky, implied past relationship, mental distress, we're dealing with a damaged memory here, winter soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 22:11:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7775605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeatenedIgnoramus/pseuds/NeatenedIgnoramus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier is always cold. Anything else is pushed to the back of his mind behind orders, programming, and design. So why does this new target make him feel warmth for the first time in his memory? An examination of that first scene in Captain America: the Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Fusion

_“Ice is for death and endings…” Guy Gavriel Kay_

* * *

 

He’s always cold. It’s the same every time – or at least in his mind, it would be the same if there was a time before. Sometimes he thinks there are multiple occasions, although the thoughts tend to flee from him, pushed away by programming. Other times, it’s just before the searing pain of shocks that he allows himself to relax for a split second, to feel fear and anguish, to almost mouth a single word around the rubber clenched between his teeth.

A name or plea, he’s never sure.

He never gets the chance to question.

There is always blackness. Then it begins, an array of images and perspective - guns, mission, masters, orders, rules, bullets, buttons, escapes, shocks, water, pain, night, day, women, men. His shards of sanity are pushed to the sides of his mind, leaving space for war, screams, pleas, targets, wounds, knives, reloads, receivers, silencers and triggers. All these things are fleeting but the cold endures. It’s a bone chill, right to his core.

He never shivers.

He doesn’t remember how.

“Approaching target.” The voice comes from a radio comms inside the troop carrier. He tilts his head up, eyes hidden behind goggles, mask covering mouth. There’s a flex of metal as he raises his arm up to grasp the handle above his head, pulling himself to his feet. The soldiers around him glance towards the heavily armed figure with the non-metal hand clenching the handle of his rifle. One man murmurs to the other, voice sotto. Whatever that soldier says is of no importance to him. The comment is irrelevant to the task at hand. The space in his mind has a singular focus: mission and man, maim and destroy. A twitch in his shoulder where metal is fused to flesh – his hand swings down and clenches under the barrel of the gun.

Fingers drum along the grip, unconsciously.

He forces them to stop.

Not permitted. No personality. He is the scalpel of society’s surgeon. The hand that pulls the trigger. The bullet in HYDRA’s gun.

The back of the troop carrier opens and he is the first out. A warm burst of sunlight hits his forehead, yet the chill inside remains. He grunts and marches to the edge of the bridge, taking his position automatically. Around him is the barely controlled panic of men at war, of commands shouted and boots on concrete. The clicking of safety switches, the check and double tap of magazines. The cacophony becomes white noise to his ears. There were always other men, always other weapons, always other points of failure. Their only role was to allow him to do what he was ordered – and his reward was for the cold to disappear into deep sleep.

It was a fair exchange for the Winter Soldier - to find comfort in the warmth of nothingness.

The car was approaching.

Targets sighted.

Finger pulls trigger.

Bullet punches through window.

Missed.

Another grunt from behind the mask. Goggles come off. The next moments are a blur as training takes over:

Explosives, bullets, shots, movement.

Boots to ground, concrete cracks under metal fist.

A disc flung to his face, dodged.

Hit.

Dodged. Knives, drop, switch, move.

Heart rate stable, still cold, movement fluid.

Strikes, kicks, movement, damage taken.

Pain can be surprisingly warm.

Then his mask is gone. The blonde man in front of him stops attacking and for the first time, the Winter Soldier doesn’t retaliate. For some reason, he feels a quickening of his heart from the look of horror in those blue eyes. It was clear the man was military, his stature one of men familiar with combat. His hair was short, shoulders broad, stance ready. But his face…

No man should be so gentle with such brutal opposition. There was warmth in his gaze, hidden behind confusion, an affection that the Winter Soldier could not place. A voice echoes from within his mind at the same time as the man speaks:

“Bucky?”

The world slows down.

The cold ebbs against the first sunspot inside his chest. His insides spark. Heat burns down his spine, like liquid glass. For the first time, he feels his hands shake, the metal at his shoulder aching against flesh, cold biting into what has never been warm. A quick image shoots through the empty space of orders. A train, a hand, the sensation of falling. It was cold then too.

That same voice. That same word. That same man. Those shoulders are achingly familiar. The affection so close to his own. That tone, less worried, more elated. A line that they dangled from, emotionally entwined, thoughts shared, bodies pressed back. Connected by a faith in something unnameable, but acted upon.

Orders from his soul obeyed.

He was happy to be ruled.

To be chosen.

To be Loved.

_How…_

Suddenly a snap inside his head resets his actions. The warmth disappears, snuffed out by programming, commands and rules. The arctic chill returns. The sensation of metal twisting around the thoughts inside his head, squeezing them down and shoving them back into the shattered fragments of his mind. A snarl that begins in the hole inside his chest erupts on his face. His lips twist. The Winter Soldier, for the first time in years, speaks:

“Who’s Bucky?”

It’s different this time.

Push forth. Engage. A cold anger burning against the foolishness, the pain of the demons this man has caused in his mind. The Winter Soldier fights with an icy rage, actions tinged with uncontrolled emotions yet to be identified. A single thought passes through the emptiness of his mind as the blonde man matches him move-for-move, a violent dance tinged with some unforgettable emotion that the Winter Soldier cannot terminate.

_It’s always different with Him…_

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! I didn't ever ship Stucky until two people I know did an awesome Gender!Flip photoshoot... and now I'm trash. This was inspired by a desire to examine that first meeting of Steve and the Winter Soldier - and to of course attempt to invoke feels in my readers.


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